Around 1510 -1576 · Venetian color, devotion and Passion

Titian gives Christ a carnal and luminous presence, where color, material and gesture together carry the mystery of the Incarnation and the Passion.

Throughout his career, Titian renewed the image of Christ by the means specific to Venetian painting. In the scenes of Childhood, the warmth of reds, blues and skin tones unites maternal tenderness with the promise of salvation. The figures of the blessing Christ or Ecce Homo, on the contrary, tighten the composition around the face, the gaze and the hand. Titian never separates emotion from the work of color: the glazes deepen the shadows, the impasto catch the light and the contours gradually open. In late Mises au tomb, matter becomes freer and almost discontinuous; it circulates pain between the body of the Christ and those who support him. The religious scene remains readable, but its strength is born less from linear precision than from the accords of flesh, fabric, night and light. The selection "Jesus Christ by Titian" notably compares Ecce homo and entombment. His reading favors light.

In Titian, color makes Christ present: it gives the flesh its light, the Passion its weight and the blessing its momentum.